Pages

July 29, 2008

G108: Angels 6, Red Sox 2

Lackey was two outs away from a no-hitter -- it would have been the first no-no against the Red Sox at Fenway Park since July 20, 1958 -- but Dustin Pedroia singled cleanly through the shortstop hole into left and Kevin Youkilis followed with a home run off one of the signs above the Monster Seats.

Tampa (Garza: 9-5-0-1-5, 106) shutout Toronto 3-0 to drop us 2 GB. Baltimore held on to beat New York 7-6, so the Yankees are 4 GB.

In three starts (15 innings) since coming back from the disabled list, Buchholz has a 6.60 ERA and has allowed opponents to hit .328/.403/.557, yet he remains confident:

I'm feeling good and healthy and I feel like the mechanics side of my game has come around. ... The biggest thing for me, when I get in a little bit of trouble, is not going out there and letting it unfold. I've got to minimize the damage.

A pitcher's record is of minimal value in judging his performance, but this is still neat: Jon Lester has begun his career with a 20-5 record and is the first Sox pitcher to be credited with 20 wins in his first 25 decisions -- Tex Hughson (1941-42) and Boo Ferriss (1945) each began 20-6.

Looks like Manny's going to need his own post, after all. Earlier today, Dan Graziano said the Mets are still in on Ramirez despite the denials. Now SI.com's Jon Heyman adds that the Dodgers are showing interest. The talks are still in their infancy, and keep in mind that the Dodgers do not want to add payroll.

Although I still remain 99.9% confident Manny won't be moved by Thursday, I'd much rather the Dodgers trade for him, if only because Colletti is more prone to doing something insane like "Kemp/Loney/cash for Manny". At least Minaya has half a brain in his head.

I still don't think the Red Sox are adding anybody outside of a reliever, and I'm not entirely convinced they need to. The only reason they might trade for Tex is to replace Manny's bat for '09.

The rumors I heard on the way home.....Ramirez for texiera then the braves would trade for him for prospects........Also to the Mets for Beltran and someone else the Red Sox would also include Ellsbury......

It may seem like I am against Manny, I'm not, I have professed my manlove for him for years, I am just irritaded, with all this crap, it takes some of the enjoyment out of baseball for me...money, pissed off- writers, injuries or not, options....Just play fuckin baseball.....

Oh yeah. My friend did a co-op work term over there last winter and it was crazy.

Great place for the olympics. (eye roll) - While that country is downright despicable, I find their attempts to cover up everything downright fucking hilarious.

I was watching the news yesterday and they were showing some government spokesperson discussing the pollution. It basically went:

"China actually has very low levels of pollution! What the world seems to think is smog is actually fog. If you can't see the person in front of you, its because it's like a giant cloud of moisture in the air. It's pretty much like a steam bath!"

yeah a lot of china's history is filtered from the youn generation. none of the students today know of the protests in tiananmen square, that information is not searchable (banned! CHINASoSH!) on their internet, books, or newspapers. seriously, thats scary.

Second, I didn't say it was the "luckiest man" speech or nothing; just thought it was a very cool thing to say. My sincere apologies for overreacting.

Third, surely all the stuff that seem to be turning off baseball have not just started happening in the past few years, right? If the cocaine scandals/strike/HGH nonsense hasn't turned you off yet, then I really can't imagine what would.

No one said it turned them off baseball. Just that it lessens the enjoyment of the sport.

Nothing will EVER turn me off baseball. I never understood all those so-called fans who said they were through with baseball after the strike. I understand few people sympathized w/ the players as I did, but why it would turn you off the sport, I didn't get.

(No need to explain, it's not that I haven't heard the arguments ad nauseum. I just don't get them.)

The shining light in this Manny mess is that Manny is tearing the cover off the ball right now. Whence he and Ortiz are clicking together we will forget this all and end up watching the GA count grow and grow. Why not?

I lived in Beijing in 1991. The air there was pretty bad even then. Coal was used for stoves and heating roadside restaurants and such. But the place has to contend with natural, geographical kinds of pollution as well -- the sand blows in from the Gobi desert, esepecially in the Fall.

I found the government to be despicable in in its hunger for legimacy through hosting athletic events. There were cute logos everywhere then for the upcoming Asian Games -- at least six years in advance.

They wanted this Olympics a lot. I can't imagine any real limit on the amount of lying and covering shit up they would try to do to make it a success.

If you're antsy for Theo to make a trade, who are you after, and who would you give up for him?

I would like to see the bullpen improve. Be that through our current situation somehow magically improving, or through acquiring a decent reliever or two - they shouldn't give up much. The chopping block should basically be some average minor leaguers, Timlin and Lugo.

Other areas that would be nice to improve would be:-getting another decent bat on the bench-having a catcher that can hit-having more depth at SS

Although I do suppose that most of these problems can be handled with the September callups. Get Kotteras up, have a couple decent PawSox hitters come up and of course, keep Lowrie. Hopefully Lugo won't be back. Good news is that he isn't able to perform any baseball-related things yet.

The Tex trade...I dunno. I can only assume Reagins got an assurance that he could lock Tex up; otherwise, it might not have been the smartest idea. That said, everybody's said the Angels needed one more A-level bat to really be a terror, and they've gotten an A/A- bat now. Kinda wish they'd waited until after the Boston series to do it.

I'll be VERY interested to see what Boston does now, if anything. There will be even more pressure for a move now.

It isn't yet known what players would be going back to Boston, but left fielder Pat Burrell is having a similar year statistically (.277/.400/.585 with 26 HRs and 61 RBIs in 103 games for Burrell; .304/.400/.538 with 20 HRs and 68 RBIs in 98 games for Ramirez) and could be a logical fit. He has a no-trade clause but has told the Phillies in the past that he'd be willing to waive it for the Red Sox and Yankees.

naturally, we started hooting and hollering for hinske every time we saw him!!

Now that I can type without having to pay attention in class...yeah fucking Toronto fans. Have no clue about anything. Like the time after the Red Sox lost the second game of the year for Toronto (i guess it'd be the fourth Sox game of 08) and Jays fans were talking like they'd just clinched the pennant.

"That's gonna be the one game that makes the difference at the end of the year when the Jays win the division by a game over Boston!"